On June 10, 1912 in the small town of Villisca, this small frame house on Lot 310 became the site of one of the grisliest murders in Iowa history when the family of Josiah Moore and two overnight guests were bludgeoned to death as they slept.
Official Site of the Villisca Axe Murders HERE
Ghosts Of The Prairie HERE
Villisca Axe Murder House and Olson Linn Museum, Villisca Iowa on Facebook HERE
Photo: Emily Carydias
A MELBOURNE tourist believes she has caught photographic evidence of a ghost haunting Babinda Boulders.
Emily Carydias was on a tour that included Babinda Boulders on Thursday and was aware of the legend of the Aboriginal woman who is said to haunt the water.
Can you see the woman’s face in the water?
I can.
I’m not sure if it’s a real ghost or not- but I do like the story the photographer tells.
She just pointed her camera and clicked and says she caught a ghost on film.
Argue with that.
a.m
I have always wanted to live in a Haunted House with a cemetery in the
front yard.
Not in the back yard, not hidden on the side yard.
But right in
THE FRONT YARD.
If I can’t have that I’m hoping that one day I’ll at least have haunted furniture like Max has.
Check it out HERE
Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle
Over the week I watched some shows as well as a couple of movies about abandoned insane asylums.
One of my favorite shows is called Ghost Adventures where the investigators are running around ” screaming did you see that, did you see that” ( no, and I doubt if they did either, being that most of the action takes place in the dark ) during the course of their investigations.
Anyway.
Ghost Adventures is always a good watch and I enjoyed watching them do their build up (their interviews with witnesses are great, they just open the mic and go for it ) to the big night when they would be locked down in the haunted asylum– which as I’ve already mentioned was my topic of the week.
But as I watched and- make no mistake- I enjoyed the stories, it did make me feel bad for the ‘ghosts’ who were supposed to haunt these places- because in the story- be it a ghost hunter show, or a movie- is the not so subtle message that if you were mentally ill in life you’re going to be in the after life as well.
I would argue that maybe– if you were to not head down to the morgue in these places to look for ghosts ( I’ve worked in morgues, mostly I might do some cleaning or paperwork- and they are BORING BORING PLACES ) and really thought about it you might realize that you’re in a building where some weird things are happening and all that is actually in the room with you is…
you
and the room.
You might come to the conclusion that maybe Shirley Jackson is right- maybe some buildings are not sane and what walks in them doesn’t walk alone-
especially if you’re foolish enough to go into those places by yourself.
Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Abandoned NJ Psychiatric Hospital
This looks like fun…
On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
My favorite part of Christmas wasn’t the presents or the food or even the free Sideshow that my family and friends provided that I in turn have shamelessy used in my writing years later
My family and friends are in ALL of my stories.
Anyway.
The best part was when we’d turn off most of the house lights, light some candles sit around the lit Christmas Tree and do the only thing you could do after a hard day of eating and drinking and making Merry.
We’d tell stories.
Everyone had a chance to tell a story- no matter how old or young – you got a chance to have the floor and tell stories like that one about that time when….
My Grandfather Saw The Ghost Lady
One of my Grandfathers was a dark haired Englishman and the other was a dark haired Filipino man and they both shared a similar experience.
They both saw the same woman at the same time- and they were living on opposite sides of the world.
So, in your minds eye picture my English Grandfather driving his 1940 Ford Coupe- his dark hair slicked back and wearing a snazzy suit- down the unlit rural streets of a town just outside of Seattle.
It’s a cold night because it’s Christmas Eve and it had started to snow a little that afternoon and the roads were icy and dangerous but that was fine with the dashing handsome man with my laugh that would one day become my Grandfather because he’s a good driver and he has no intention of not showing up at his family’s house in time for Christmas Dinner.
And somewhere in the Canefields on the big Island of Hawaii my other Grandfather- a dark handsome man with jet black hair and my eyes- is driving something called a Willy’s Jeep- through the dark fields towards his home along the bluff of the Waipio Valley where his family is waiting for him to bring home the treats for their Christmas Party.
And as they almost reach their homes they each see standing on the side of the road- a woman.
Her hair is white and her eyes are green .
She’s wearing a black dress and her hair is pulled back and she’s wearing rings on all of her fingers.
Each of them pulls up to the side of the road and asks the woman if she needs help.
” No” she tells them. ” I just need a ride.”
” To where ” they ask.
She leans in and whispers, ” Why, I want to go to wherever it is you’re going.”
Both of them don’t like her- they don’t like the way her hand rests on the hoods of their car, they don’t like the way she sounds, they don’t like the way she seems very sure she’s going to get what she wants.
” You can’t come with me. ” they tell her.
The Woman slams her palm down and the Car and the Jeep tilt a little to the left and she says, ” I go where I want- do you hear me? And what I want is for you to let me in!”
Both of my Grandfathers start to pull away and that’s when they look down and see that the hem of the woman’s dress is floating a little above the ground- where her feet should be.
But weren’t.
When they looked backup into her face she was smiling.
” I travel these roads but I don’t walk them.”
Did she tell you how she traveled them? I asked over 30 years later.
Neither man answered me.
Their story always ended with them driving off and the Ghost Lady being pulled back into the trees at the side of the road or the canfields by the shadows.
I think she did answer and in the end when they died I think they won- whatever that Ghost Lady said, whatever curse or threat she made- got left on those roads years ago.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if they had let her in, would I be here to tell you this story?
I could answer it if you like…or you could leave it here on the side of the road.
The choice is yours.
Happy Holidays
from
amm
page
They ( the Miners ) believed that while working down in a mine the ghosts or spirits of dead miners who had been killed in mines would come to claim their souls.
When all was quiet down in the mine shaft sometimes the miners would hear a taping, the sound of a pick hitting rock.
This was the sound of a Tommy Knocker and many, many times when this sound was heard there would soon be a cave in of the mine and many miners lost their lives this way.
Therefore, when the miners heard this sound those who believed in the Tommy Knockers would run from the mine and would not return to work in it again.
consider this: what it would feel like if you woke up one night and heard that sound coming from under your bed.
for more tales of the Macabre
vist
People debate it all of the time- with themselves, with each other and I think it’s a waste of time.
Ghosts are for real…and if they aren’t they should be because when it comes right down to it, we all need a good story now and then.
And good stories make for good times.
So read this article and remember…it’s FIVE MORE DAYS!
and that cool breath of air on your neck.
it’s just me…
That’s the spirit: Belief in ghosts high
By ALAN FRAM and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press
Those things that go bump in the night? About one-third of people believe they could be ghosts.
And nearly one out of four, 23 percent, say they’ve actually seen a ghost or felt its presence, finds a pre-Halloween poll by The Associated Press and Ipsos.
One is Misty Conrad, who says she fled her rented home in Syracuse, Ind., after her daughter began talking to an unseen girl named Nicole and neighbors said children had been murdered in the house. That was after the TV and lights began flicking on at night.
“It kind of creeped you out,” Conrad, 40, of Hampton, Va., recalled this week. “I needed to get us out.”
About one out of five people, 19 percent, say they accept the existence of spells or witchcraft. Nearly half, 48 percent, believe in extrasensory perception, or ESP.
The most likely candidates for ghostly visits include single people, Catholics and those who never attend religious services. By 31 percent to 18 percent, more liberals than conservatives report seeing a specter.
Those who dismissed the existence of ghosts include Morris Swadener, 66, a Navy retiree from Kingston, Wash.
He says he shot one with his rifle when he was a child.
“I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a white ghost in my closet,” he said. “I discovered I’d put a hole in my brand new white shirt. My mother and father were not amused.”
Three in 10 have awakened sensing a strange presence in the room. For whatever it says about matrimony, singles are more likely than married people to say so.
Fourteen percent — mostly men and lower-income people — say they have seen a UFO. Among them is Danny Eskanos, 44, an attorney in Palm Harbor, Fla., who says as a Colorado teenager he watched a bright light dart across the sky, making abrupt stops and turns.
“I knew a little about airplanes and helicopters, and it was not that,” he said. “It’s one of those things that sticks in your mind.”
Spells and witchcraft are more readily believed by urban dwellers, minorities and lower-earning people. Those who find credibility in ESP are more likely to be better educated and white — 51 percent of college graduates compared to 37 percent with a high school diploma or less, about the same proportion by which white believers outnumber minorities.
Overall, the 48 percent who accept ESP is less than the 66 percent who gave that answer to a similar 1996 Newsweek question.
One in five say they are at least somewhat superstitious, with young men, minorities, and the less educated more likely to go out of their way to seek luck. Twenty-six percent of urban residents — twice the rate of those from rural areas — said they are superstitious, while single men were more superstitious than unmarried women, 31 percent to 17 percent.
The most admitted-to superstition, by 17 percent, was finding a four-leaf clover. Thirteen percent dread walking under a ladder or the groom seeing his bride before their wedding, while slightly smaller numbers named black cats, breaking mirrors, opening umbrellas indoors, Friday the 13th or the number 13.
Generally, women were more superstitious than men about four-leaf clovers, breaking mirrors or grooms prematurely seeing brides. Democrats were more superstitious than Republicans over opening umbrellas indoors, while liberals were more superstitious than conservatives over four-leaf clovers, grooms seeing brides and umbrellas.
Then there’s Jack Van Geldern, a computer programmer from Riverside, Conn. Now 51, Van Geldern is among the 5 percent who say they have seen a monster in the closet — or in his case, a monster’s face he spotted on the wall of his room as a child.
“It was so terrifying I couldn’t move,” he said. “Needless to say I survived the event and never saw it again.”
The poll, conducted Oct. 16-18, involved telephone interviews with 1,013 adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
___
AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.
Irregular Bones 